todavía enfermito

Hey hey hey,

    Well i´m still pretty sick, during this week i felt like i was on my death bed a few days and so we didn´t get that much work done this week sadly, but i feel that this week i´ll be feeling good enough to work hard again. Anyway i guess i can catch you guys up on what´s going on here.

    R_____ and her son S____ are our golden investigators because we meet them on a referral from a member and just from the first appointment they haven´t stop progressing. They had gone to lots of different churches, but they didn´t like any of the other churches, and one trip here to the LDS Church, and they already know that it is true. They read everything we give them and they actually try to re-read it a few times to understand it better and they pray and read together always. S_____ is only 10 years old, but he is understanding alot of it, as he is just really into it and always excited to go to church. They have a baptismal date for the 31 of August. Satan is already working on them because since the first appointment they have had friends and even her Mom come up to her saying that the church is crazy and teaches lies, but even so, with the very little knowledge they have, they have defended it. So even though i´ve been really sick, we´ve always gone to these appointments to keep them progressing. 

    So the reason why i was sent here to this area is because in my old area we were working with pure families and families with lots of marital problems, and in a lot of the cases we were able to solve problems, or help out a lot, and to me that joy of seeing a broken family get fixed with the gospel was the best in the world and it got me super pumped to go find more families like that to help them. So when i get here, i was talking to my comp and he was telling me how they were thinking about dropping a few families because... take a guess... they had marital problems. But i arrived super pumped and prepared for just that so now we´re doing work in that area. I know that God was preparing me in my last area to come here at this time and help these families we have right now and i´m really hoping i can do some good. 

    M______ (the determined kid) is this 12 year old kid who comes to church on his own every week for the last 8 weeks or so. We finally had a formal appointment there with him and his mom and she was telling us how she has noticed a big difference in his behavior, as he´s a lot more respectful to everyone and does better in school and everything now that he is going to church. His mom also said that she was looking in the Book of Mormon for something to prove that it is wrong and she couldn't find anything like what she was looking for, and she kinda admitted that she thinks the church is true, so we´re hoping that the baptism of M______set for the 31st can help her to progress, and what's more she told us how her husband is shy but would like to learn more also and M_____´s little brother said he wants to hear the lessons too, so there you are, through this kid coming to church and allowing the gospel to change him, a whole family might find that joy and peace that there is to find in the gospel. 

 

Questions: Is Mckay going to go to the same mission in Ukraine? Can you guys send me the recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip bread that we make every Christmas? When are sign-ups for class for spring semester at USU?

    

Anyway i think that´s all for now; i am getting better health wise so don´t worry too much, but keep me in your prayers. I know that this is the work of the Lord and i´m pumped to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands to help bring families to Him and make them eternal. I love you guys and miss you, take care!

Love,

Elder Pfister

¿Cómo va todo?

Hey fam!

   Well this change is going great so far, but this letter might be short again, i`m really sorry it`s just that being a ZL I have to report all the numbers of everyone online, plus take pictures and put them online of all the baptismal registros and that usually takes half an hour or so - just so you know why i can`t write too much lately - and now our zone went from 14 missionaries to 26, little bit bigger haha but it`s cool, other than reporting things i like having a bigger zone. 

    To answer the questions... My comps name is Levi Wright from Pleasant Grove i believe. Elder Collier is still in David, and Elder Stegelmeier is actually in the same ward as me so we have church and a few lunches together. I got the package you sent last, and in thinking about it i can`t really think of anything i need that i can`t get here... 

    So we have some really positive investigators right now and a few have fechas for this month. Next week i`ll make sure to write a better letter and explain in detail everything but for now a quick overview. R_____ and S____n are like golden investigators that we just found, but are going to get baptized already. M____ is a cool determined young man who wants to get baptized and through him we might be able to baptize a whole family of 5.  And yet again we are fighting the government bureaucracy because we have 3 people who would get baptized right now, but they need to get divorced from their past spouse, and married to their current partners, so we`re in that struggle now. Those are the most positive i can think of for now. 

   Overall my comp is cool, the ward is nice and my area is sweet, really hot sadly but oh well, i`ll lose more weight sweating alot. Right now i`m actually really sick with a terrible cough but nothing else, my comp thinks it is bronchitis because he had it earlier in his mission and it was the exact same thing, i went to the doctor and they gave me some meds which i`m taking, so this week is the test to see if i get better, but the bummer is i think i may have to take some sick days and stay in because in the house i feel fine but once i go out to work in the sun is when it hits me hard. We`ll see but don`t worry too much i`m not going to die and i won`t do anything dumb like work myself beyond my capacity. 

    Anyway, I know that this is the work of the Lord because I am already seeing a purpose for me being in this area, remind me to tell you next week about that story. I love you guys and you are always in my prayers! Take care!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Hola Familia!!

Hey hey hey!

    Well this week is full of surprises! This Wednesday are changes and in theory i was supposed to get a new comp but they are changing me. What happened is that there were two zones here in David but now they are making them into one zone and they are sending me to be ZL but working in the other ZL area so i already know who my comp will be and where i`m going. I will be in Barrio 2 here in David with Elder Wright a gringo that i think is from Utah, but i`m not really sure. I`m always excited to have changes and meet new people but this time i`m really bummed too because i`m not going to get to work with A____h to get him baptized - and the new missionaries won`t know him so it`ll be hard for them to get to know him like we do, just a big step backwards in his progress i think because even if we explain everything it`s not the same because of the confidence and trust we've built.  But it will work out ok I hope.

    So this week the mission work has been tough because we`ve been going back and forth from my area to Elder Collier`s so it slowed us down alot but everything is pretty much the same. A___h is still on the fence on whether he wants to get baptized or not. I____ doesn`t think that she will be able to go to the temple for work reasons but she`s doing good and will go in November on the next ward visit. N____ is being tough especially when we went with the hermanas, as he doesn`t take the sisters as seriously as he does the Elders for some reason, so that`ll be tough. 

    My finger turned black in Colon when we were doing a service project. We had to get cement blocks from one side of a little river to the other so instead of walking that whole distance we started throwing them. A crazy Tongan would throw them to me and i caught them so they didn`t break, but one time he didn`t throw it hard enough and i went down to catch it and my finger got smashed  and it did hurt. But the fingernail just barely fell off recently. 

    We have actually gone to Boquete nearly every p-day this change, it`s amazing there because its cool and fresh, i don`t sweat constantly over there in the mountains. We usually eat and then just find a hike or something to do. 

    The last bus ride to Panama city was ok, i was able to sleep a little. None of the bus rides are really that great but oh well. Luckily this time i don`t have to go, they are only paying for one of the zls to go and i think it'll be Elder Wright not me for the next meeting. 

    Speaking of mission blogs president just send me the link to his blog this week here it is...

http://sunshineinmysoulpanamamission.blogspot.com/

    Well i gotta go but i`m excited to see my new area and what it has in store for me; they say that it is a cool area and i know that my comp is chill. I know that this is the work of the Lord and that if they are changing me it`s for a reason and i have a purpose there! Love you guys!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Buenos momentos aquí!!

July 29, 2013

Hola,

    Well this last week was the most stressful ever but it paid off big time! We had two weddings go through and a baptism.

    So the first wedding was N_____ and A____ L_____. She is already a member that is reactivating herself and he is not a member. They got married on Friday after a whole week of complications with the medical papers; first they didn't show up then the papers were missing a doctor's review and then turns out that they hadn't done one of the more important tests and wow it was a big mess and we had to pull every string possible to make it work, but with help from above, they got married! I put fotos on Skydrive so you can see.

    The other wedding which was sweet, was A___ and I____, & they got married on Saturday and it was a cool wedding. For one they were way pumped to get married when 5 weeks ago they weren't getting along at all. Also when the judge said 'together till the death separates you', he corrected her and said, nope we'll be together for all eternity. Then a few hours later I____ and V____ the daughter got baptized. A____ still isn't sure if he's ready but I am sure that he will get baptized soon. In the goodbye of  Elder Reed we gave our testimonies and A____ was crying a little and he said how much the family has changed and how he wants to go to the temple with his family and not just go but enter too. He will get baptized i know it and they will get sealed in the temple for time and all eternity and it will be awesome! 

    As for D____, we went with the Bishop and it was a sad lesson. He opened up finally and he has big problems with the church even though he says he knows its true. We also talked about him getting married so his girlfriend can get baptized and he threw out a bunch of excuses.  They have some big problems between them but the sad part is that the girl J_____ really loves him. Anyway the bishop just said that that visit made him really sad after because of the potential this guy has but its gonna take a miracle to change him. He's convinced himself that he doesn't need the church and that he knows better than everyone else how to be close to Christ. 

    So this is my comps last day with me, tonight he goes to Panama to chill there and now i'm gonna be with Elder Collier again for a week or so, it'll be a party!

    China looks sweet! Nice fotos that you put up. McNabb is an eagle again???  We got to A____ house right as the Gold Cup (soccer) was ending so it was fun bugging him a little cuz he's a huge soccer fan. yeah thats amazing about Patrick getting gored in Spain, and the sweet foto that he has now.  By the way, last week i got the package with the ties and candy; thanks a bunch but one of the ties already got ruined a little because of the huge rains we're having here. 

   Well i'll end by saying that my testimony has grown so much about familias eternas working with the A___ family because they have captured the vision of having one and they are working towards it, and while I was testifying of it to them, the Spirit testified to me that it is true. I know that families can be together forever through the temple! Love you guys and take care! 

Love,

Elder Pfister

Hola Gente: Combined letters July 15 and July 22, 2013

July 15th, 2013

 

Hola gente ,

    So bad news..... I'm not really going to be able to write because i had to put in baptismal reports because my zone baptized a lot and it took up the whole time  -sorry.... but the good news is i`m fine and things are going great here! I`ll have a good report next week! Love you and take care!

Love,

Elder Pfister

p.s. have fun in China!

 

July 22, 2013

 

 Hola Fam!

    Well i gotta make this one a shorter one too but i'll give a short wrap up.

 

We are having some really good progress with 4 investigators (A____, I____, N____, and An_____) , they are all getting married hopefully at the end of the week and hopefully with a little help from above A___ and I____ and V____  their daughter will get baptized Saturday too. That's the biggest news of the week and the fact that this upcoming week is the last week of my comps mission, we'll see how it goes, haha. 

So to answer your questions:

- the new mission president is awesome, he's gonna be amazing once he gets the hang of it. he's a real cool guy too.

-the bus rides to the meetings in Panama City were horrible, one really cold and the other amazingly hot plus it was kinda like 3 days without sleep,so i was a zombie. 

-the weather here is hot then really rainy and hot again. 

 

Sounds like China is crazy, that story with you guys and the rickshaw people trying to rip you off sounds frightening - way too show them they can't rip off gringos! haha.

   

Sorry for the really short letters just that we have to do alot to marry people here, and man this has been the most stressful week of my mission.

 

Love you guys lots! Take care in China!

Love,

Elder Pfister

Gran semana

Hey,

    Well guys, to start off i just gotta say that the bbq ribs that you guys had on the 4th of July looked amazing!! i got really jealous looking at the pictures, delicious mouth-watering ribs with watermelon and fam, what more could you ask for! 

    Here is Chiriqui things are going great! We have had positive progress with pretty much all of our investigators and i mostly just have good news. But before i forget i'd like to ask a favor.... we are yet again stuck without a cook for lunch and we decided to just cook at home because it is healthier and less of a pain but i'm getting bored with my normal meals that i make everyday and i was just wondering if you guys could send me a few recipes of simple meals that are cheap and easy to make but tasty of course! All we have is a little electric stovetop thing and a blender. 

    Ok, so last week i forgot to mention this one family that we are also teaching. A_____ is the husband, I___ the wife and they have two younger kids. Last week we taught them about marriage, because they are not married, and baptism and I____ told us that she is down with it - she wants to get married and baptized but.... A____ no. What happened is that when we found them they had alot ALOT of marital problems and the only reason they were together was for the kids. They had both cheated on each other multiple times and it was a mess. They decided to listen to us because their neighbors also had lots of problems in their marriage, but Elder Reed and his past comp taught them and they fixed all those problems and got baptized - so A____ and I____ decided to give us a shot. So this week I____ was way positive but A_____ not positive, and to make it worse we had set up an interview with the bishop for them and they didn't even show up to church.... We were way bummed out, so we asked the bishop if he could come with us to teach them (running out of time, going to long story, short mode) we had a meeting so we got there to their house late, the Bishop had already talked to them and said that now they both wanted to get married and baptized on the 27 of July - which pretty much means our Bishop is a boss and used his priesthood to work a miracle with them. But it's actually a secret, A_____ doesn't want I____ to know yet that he wants to get married. More details later in another letter, because it's a really cool story, but I don't have time to share it. 

    D_____, J_____, her son and E___ all came to church again and are progressing. J____ after church told us that she wants to meet with us sometime when her husband isn't there to talk without him. I have no idea what it will be that she wants to talk about, but i'm really anxious to find out. 

    We have this other part member family that is close to wanting to be baptized. J___ is the mom, and she has two children, one is already a great member but the other is not a member. Her problem is that she works from 6 to 8 then comes home to take care of her mom and children and do all the house work because she is a single mom. The Relief Society promised to help us out there, more to come on this story. 

    We took the sacrament to this really old lady this week who is pretty much gone, she is days from passing on and you can tell when you see her. The cool thing is that she can hardly say a word, but after we gave her a blessing she started bearing her testimony, and she said that she knows that Jesus lives and that Jesus and Heavenly Father are waiting for her to come home and all "in the name of jesucristo amen." It wasn't a long testimony but coming from her it was a miracle, everyone there in the home that works with her was completely surprised she could say that and it was amazing to hear! It brought such a strong spirit hearing her say that. She will be well received in heaven because she has been strong in the church her whole life.

   Well that is all that time permits for now... have a great time in China and be safe! I'm glad to hear everyone is doing well and had a good time for the 4th of July, we did too with fireworks and burgers, but not quite as good as your ribs haha. Take care and i love and miss you!

Love,
Elder Pfister

Meto! Soy chiricano por fin!

Hey Hey Hey!

    Well, it sounds like Hermana Noris already informed you guys about the biggest news... Yep i´m now a Zone Leader in the Zone of Chiriquí in the city of David, faraway from the city of Panama (30 km from Costa Rica). My comp is Elder Tanis Reed from Houston Texas i believe. He has 23 months in the mission and is going home on August 1st so i have the pleasure of sending him off. Something interesting is that Elder Collier is also in my zone with an elder that also goes home on August 1st which is before the changes, so it appears that Elder Collier and i are gonna end up being comps again at the end of the change for a few weeks, haha. 

     So far i´m loving Chiriquí, it´s in the rainy season right now, but it hasn´t been raining very much but it´s been really cool so it´s felt great. Supposedly it´s really hot here when the suns comes out strong but i have yet to see that so i´m happy. The people here are really chill and the life style is more relaxed and easy going and it feels like the size of Logan, big enough to have shops and stuff but not too big that it´s a snarled mess so i´m diggin it. Yeah, the two coldest (temperature wise) areas in Panama are close by Boquete which is in my zone and then there is this volcano that is like 2 hours away so i´m excited to go feel the cold again.

    The bus ride does take like 7 to 9 hours to get here depending on traffic and it´s a pain but the buses are pretty comfortable but traveling that far in anything is uncomfortable. And i have to go back to Panama on Wednesday for the monthly ZL meeting so that will consist of leaving Tuesday night and traveling the whole night, going to the meeting Wednesday morning and then heading off back to David to arrive here sometime around 3 or 4 am; sounds exhausting, we´ll see how it goes haha. The cool thing is that i will have a chance to meet Pres. Carmack.

    During changes to say goodbye to President Ward we all just gave him cards and pictures of ourselves with things written on them. At the end of all the changes they both talked to the entire group, it was sad but they gave good talks. Hermana Ward talked about how she has an eternal family and how she wants to see all of us in the Celestial Kingdom with our eternal families. Pres Ward talked about alot of things and pretty much just talked about obedience and how much he loves us and has loved being our president, and encouraged us to work hard and do everything right in the mission and after. Well, Presidente and Hermana Ward should be getting home today to the States....

     I talked to Elder 'Atuake in the changes, he is ZL in San Miguelito and he said he didn´t get the packages yet but someone told him that they had arrived i think and he just needed to picked them up i think. 

     So my zone is half of the city of David and everything to the north. We have 14 missionaries in the zone, 6 elders and 8 sisters. The areas are Doelguita with us and 2 sisters. Las Lomas with 4 sisters. Lassonde with Collier and his comp and 2 sisters, and we have Boquete with sisters there.

    My area is sweet so far because we have some way cool investigators and they are all families that we are helping so here we go, the rundown....

There´s D_____ and J______. D_____ is already a member but inactive for 20 years. He´s a very successful lawyer who has some impressive stories of standing up for what he believes in in his job. For example he works with land and this politician wanted to take this beach front land from some poor people to build a hotel and when they went to D_____ to tell him to allow it he said he wouldn´t do it, so the people he was dealing with said you will do it or we will fire you and he said "fire me then", and that´s what they did, they fired him, but he took them to court and won. He has quite a few stories like that because the government and other powerful people can be corrupt here i guess. So he is really smart and stands up for everything, so he would be a great leader in the church.  i really like him, he is really cool. And one funny part is that he´s starting a screen printing company on the side and i helped him set up some of the stuff that they weren´t familiar with because that is exactly what i was doing with Jason in the Logo Shop. Anyway, J_____ is his girlfriend of 13 years and is not a member. She is really sweet person too and when we explained the Book of Mormon she accepted it really well and she has a desire to read and study more. We´re trying to help them get married so she can get baptized because she does like the church. Lots of her family are members but their problem is that they have always invited her to church and talked about the church but they never explained anything about it so she needs to be taught and guided into the Church.

    Another part member family we have is N____ and A__ L____.  AL has been a member for a long time with a few times going inactive but right right she is really active. He husband doesn´t come to church because he went once and was just bored  so yesterday we talked to him and explained the difference between going to church and doing church stuff and being converted to the church and how with everything we do with God, we have to do it with faith and a sincere desire to learn and progress or else we won´t go anywhere. After helping him understand that he has to put a mental and spiritual effort in and not just physically showing up,  he kinda had a light bulb moment and was like wow you´re right and got really excited to start reading and going to church again but this time with his new way of looking at things and studying. So that was last night, and they are not married either and he never wanted to get married... until this morning when she called us and said, hey my husband wants to get married, what do we have to do? We were in shock but then like, um ok well this and that. We´re heading there today or tomorrow to start that whole process, exciting!

    We have a few more people and families but i haven´t really gotten to know them so i can´t say that much but as time goes on i´ll let ya know what´s up. My ward has about 80 people coming every week but we have one of the best Bishops in Panama, he is way awesome and way involved in the mission work.  The stake president wants to split the ward, but we hope that doesn't happen for alot of reasons.

    One cool thing is that Elder Collier lives in the apartamento of some gringo from Texas and we live close to them so they are inviting us to a 4th of July party. I´m way pumped for this change, we´re 4 missionary gringos way close and good friends so it´ll be a party on that U.S. holiday (we'll talk Church to the non-member gringos too). Also my comp is going to play tennis for BYU so he wants to go back in shape so we´re starting to wake up at 6 to do exercises so i can get back into that now. 

    Thanks for all the news from home, i can´t respond to all of it but i read it all! I´m glad to know everything is going well for everyone. I was thinking about when i would like to come back here and i think i would prefer before school starts like December but if it´s not possible that´s cool too, whatever works. Well i think that wraps things up for this short week. 

Working so much with families here has been awesome because it´s helped my testimony alot about how the families can be eternal and how that is our purpose here on the earth, get a family and raise everyone in the gospel. There is no greater joy than having a family centered on Jesus Christ and when it is centered on Him, it´s a happy and united family that can work through any problems and always coming out winning like champs! I´m unbelievable pumped to help all these families reach their dreams of being eternal. And i gotta say, thanks a ton Mom and Dad for raising our family with the gospel and making us an eternal family, it´s always a comfort to know that we will always be together forever! I love you guys, Take care!!

Love,

Elder Pfister